As I previously wrote, my YOLO solo trip this July was coming together nicely. The last remaining piece of the puzzle was waiting for Emirates to open A380 First Class award space between Dubai and Bangkok. I was expecting that space to open up sometime between 30 days and a week before the trip based on how other dates were opening up in batches for that route. Adding the flight to my existing booking would cost me only an additional 15,250 Emirates miles (but unfortunately another $400 in fees) making the overall booking a much better value for 20+ hours in First Class.

Then, I woke up Saturday morning to some bad news: Emirates was going to limit First Class award bookings to elite members of their rewards program. This change was happening in 48 hours, so while this is not a no-notice devaluation like we have seen from some programs, it was still very short notice. I needed to figure out my plan for still being able to add the Dubai-Bangkok flight to my existing Chicago-Dubai Emirates Gamechanger 777 First Class flight.

There were several options I considered, but I needed to make a decision fairly quickly. The policy change did not seem to affect upgrades to First Class on or near the day of travel. In other words, you can still book a Business Class award ticket and then upgrade to First Class using miles. For me, this would have been a very expensive option. A Business Class award ticket between Dubai and Bangkok was either 105,000 miles plus $400 for an award booking or $2100 in cash. Then, assuming the First Class seat was available, it’s another 39k (or more) miles to confirm it. This was quickly considered as only a last possible scenario and I moved on to other less costly options.

I quickly looked for other cities where there was an A380 flight available on the day I need where I could later connect onward to Bangkok. Unfortunately, there were no Asian cities that had availability. Only Europe seemed to have open award seats. I didn’t relish the idea of flying back to Europe and then getting to Bangkok (to pick up the Qatar flight I had already booked). I also didn’t want to necessarily hang around Europe for a couple of days before my Etihad Apartments flight from Abu Dhabi to Toronto and lose the Qatar A380 First Class booking from Bangkok back to the Middle East.

The next option I considered was to get the $99 Emirates credit card from Barclays which comes with Silver status for the first year. That would have allowed me to book the First Class flight when it became available and add it to my existing award ticket. The main downside of this option isn’t necessarily paying the extra $99 for a year’s worth of status (although that’s annoying), but it would affect my 5/24 status with Chase, where I am currently about to have them reconsider my application for the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100k signup offer. Barclays reports to credit bureaus very quickly so this could have scuppered my chances with Chase as I am currently 4/24. Barclays can also be weird about credit applications and even though they have approved me in the past, you never know what their underwriters would do. I did not want to depend on this option for this trip (although I would consider it in the future if my wife and I want to try and fly First Class on Emirates again).

That left me one final option which seemed to make sense. If I could find the Dubai-Bangkok flight available on a future date, I could add it now before the policy change (for the 15,250 miles plus $400) and then later on change it to the date I need when that award space becomes available. I found a date in August where the award seat was available and called Emirates to book. I even explained to the representative why I was booking a 30+ day stopover in Dubai on this ticket and they agreed it made sense. I confirmed that any changes could be made to the ticket without charge later on. I could even cancel the ticket for no charge if needed.

So, the last step in the plan is for space to become available on the date I need in July. When that happens, I will call in and change the date of the flight. There are two A380 flights with First Class to Bangkok daily (one of the reasons I picked Bangkok as the destination) and as of now, there are 11 of 14 First Class seats available on one flight and 12 of 14 available on the other. I feel fairly confident that I’ll be able to change to one of these flights even if it comes down to the last few days before I leave.

One last aspect to consider is how will I know when the flight is available on the date I need when I can no longer search for First Class space on Emirates’ app or website without elite status? The answer is that partners such as Aeroplan and Qantas still show Emirates first class award space. That’s right, Emirates limited their own members’ ability to book these awards but left this ability for partner frequent flyer programs. I expect that they have inter-airline agreements that limit their ability to devalue awards with short notice. At least for me, this option allows me to search for space for the flight I need on the date I need.

If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links.